Where it all begins
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day five hundred and twenty-six: Mike and Tina are going out on their first date, and after an awkward beat they find their way.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 25th cycle. Now cycle 26!_

* * *

**"Where it all begins"  
14yo Mike/Tina  
Chang Squared #6 **

He wanted this to be perfect. It was going to be their first real date, their… well, he didn't know about her, but it was going to be his first date… ever. He'd never been in a relationship like this, and he didn't want to screw it up. Tina was… She was special. He wanted her to know that.

Though he knew the potential awkwardness and embarrassment it would bring, he had asked his father for advice. It was everything he had expected it to be, and in the end he was nowhere closer. He'd tried the internet, but that was kind of sketchy at best. So in the end he just decided… He'd take her to dinner, and then he'd figure out the rest from how it was going. With that in mind, he just had to get ready and go get her. Technically speaking, he was getting himself to her house and then her father was driving them to the mall, but it was all the same.

When he got to her house, her mother answered the door. She had this smirk on her face and Mike wasn't sure whether to be scared or if she just found all this so amusing. He didn't think about it too much, not when Tina came down and… he was pretty sure he gulped… She gulped, too.

"Ready to go?" Mr. Cohen came up, reaching for his jacket, and Mike snapped out of it, getting Tina's jacket for her and helping her into it. She took the moment when he was behind her and couldn't see her face to quickly banish the sudden blush on her face, though her mother caught it and smiled. They were silent at first, in the car, and once again it was Mr. Cohen who broke the silence. "So where are you two headed?" Tina didn't know, so she looked to Mike.

"Uh, Marty's Pizza," he replied, and Tina grinned, excited.

"Oh, good choice, good choice… Better enjoy it while you can. I hear they're closing it down, opening a Breadstix in its place."

"What?" Mike was shocked.

"But Breadstix sucks!" Tina complained.

Soon they had arrived at the mall, and they were left to their date, with the promise her father would come pick them up again at the time they'd agreed on. Now that they were alone though, there was a bit of… reality. They were all on their own now, they were there, they were on their date… and that could only lead to extreme awkwardness. They had hung out plenty of time, they'd been to the mall more than they could count, yet this evening was just… different. They got their table at Marty's Pizza, and they ordered their drinks – Mike had a Coke, Tina had a Root Beer – and they looked at the menu to choose their pizza. "Anchovies?" Mike asked, and Tina squirmed. He looked back to the menu. "Pineapple?"

"You weren't planning on having those together, were you?" she asked, and he chuckled… tension over. "How about the chicken one?" she pointed, and he agreed. As they waited for it to arrive, the game somehow became flicking a sugar packet back and forth at one another. When it broke though – Tina insisted he was the one who tore it, and he maintained it was her, the matter never settled – they hurried to clean it up and the game stopped. They were just done when the waitress came over with their pizza. They were starving and dug right in, which made for little to no conversation for a while. They were trying not to talk with their mouths full, but the way they had it, Marty's Pizza was impossible to stop eating… "I can't believe they'd ever close this place," was the first thing Mike said when he'd finished.

"I know… Let's make a pact, right now, to never eat at Breadstix," she shook her head and he smirked.

"Deal," he held out his hand she shook it.

"Tomato sauce," she remarked when she pulled her hand back and found it in her palm, transferred from Mike's. He gave her a napkin, then took one for himself. It was as he wiped his hand that something dawned on him.

"Hey, Tina?" She looked up. "You haven't stuttered once tonight," he pointed out, and she paused.

"Oh…" she realized, then after a moment, she smiled. "Oh…" He laughed. "Guess you cured me or something," she told him, preferring not to get into the whole subject of that, not on that night. Either way, he wasn't complaining… and on that day she just stopped, left the mask behind.

With their dinner done, Mike had to decide what they would do next, and just as he'd ended up figuring, the solution came to him all on its own. He looked to her. "I think I know where we need to go," he told her, and she smiled. "Where it all began."

"The arcade?" she asked. He shook his head. "Yeah, it is, on my birthday, we…"

"It was before that," he told her, and she stopped.

"It was?" she asked, just as he held out his hand to her. She took it, and he led her up to the second floor, to the ice cream stand.

"It took me a while to remember, but… I know it was you, because one time you had that dress on," he indicated the dress she was wearing. She looked down at herself, confused. "Whenever I came here, in the summer, I would come and get a cone. One scoop pistachio, one scoop cookie dough."

"So did I!" she reacted, and he smiled.

"The first time I got it, I'm pretty sure, it was because I saw you around here, somewhere, having one. And I tried it, and after that it was all I got. Every once in a while, there you would be, having that same cone. So, to me, that's where it started, even if we didn't know," he explained. She couldn't stop smiling… couldn't stop blushing… She didn't care if he saw. "Still like it that way?"

"Of course," she nodded, so he ordered them one each, and they went to sit nearby. "The best part was when it started melting, and I got a bit of both flavors," she explained, and he agreed. There was some silent eating here as well, but the one free hand they had was in the other's, so the silence didn't matter so much. And this time it was Tina who broke the silence. "This was a really good evening," she told him. "We should do it ag…" she started, then hesitated, not wanting to assume too much, but…

"Again. Yes… Definitely," he finished for her, with her.

THE END

**

* * *

**

**A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
****always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


End file.
